


The Forbidden Love Double Sham Marriage Caper Heist (Spoiler: They Get Together)

by amycarey



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Adultery, Alternate Universe, F/F, Fake Marriage, Forbidden Love, Heist, If you squint at it sideways, Marriage of Convenience, So many tropes, Tropes, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-31
Updated: 2015-01-31
Packaged: 2018-03-09 16:39:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3256955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amycarey/pseuds/amycarey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emma Swan is a detective for Boston P.D., happily married to her best friend, Hua Mulan, for almost two years. Regina Mills has been married to Marian Álvarez for close to a year. Of course, Emma and Mulan got married to facilitate Mulan getting a Green Card and Regina married Marian to pull off one final job before leaving crime behind her forever – a bank job (or heist, as Marian insists on calling it) to get her revenge on the man who destroyed her life.</p><p>They meet. Sparks fly. Tropes abound.</p><p>Written for the ‘Forbidden Love’ prompt as part of Swan Queen Week.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Forbidden Love Double Sham Marriage Caper Heist (Spoiler: They Get Together)

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Jane for reading the first 1,500 words and my incredibly vague planning and telling me all the things didn’t make sense. Thank you to Karen for BETA-ing, particularly the heist aspects, and for giving me the title. And, finally, thank you to Libby for her awesome efforts in organising Swan Queen Week. I am very aware I have taken creative liberties with the law and banking and police work, but given the general implausibility of the whole storyline, well, it was bound to happen.

“Honey, I’m home,” Emma calls as she enters the apartment. She’s been living there two years almost, and she still gets this feeling like she should shower in disinfectant before she moves from the hallway of what might very well be the nicest apartment in Boston. Being married to an investment banker has its perks.

 

“And what time do you call this?” Mulan asks, entering the hall, taking Emma’s jacket from her as she kicks off her boots and lines them up at the door. She’s in a good mood; normally all Emma gets are sighs and eye rolls at her ‘old married couple’ cracks.

 

“What do you want?” Emma asks. The apartment smells of dumplings and Mulan only makes her dumplings when she wants something from her, claiming they’re far too much effort otherwise. She’s wearing an apron over her neatly ironed shirt, sleeves rolled up, and dress slacks. The apron’s one Emma got her for their first anniversary; it’s ridiculous and has ‘World’s Best Husband’ emblazoned across the chest and her freshman college roommate, Mary Margaret, had shaken her head when Mulan had opened it at the little party they’d held, even as Mulan fell off her stool she was laughing so hard.

 

“I need you,” she says and she’s practically vibrating with excitement, which, for Mulan means she’s actually smiling without the involvement of alcohol. “Tomorrow. My boss wants me to wine and dine this high-rolling couple who are looking to bank with us.”

 

“I thought you were too gay for that,” Emma says, following her through to the kitchen. Mulan has all too regularly bemoaned the fact that she doesn’t get the opportunities at work that she should because of her marriage to Emma. Of course, she wouldn’t be able to work at the bank, or anywhere in the USA for that matter, without her marriage to Emma so she thinks maybe Mulan should stop whinging.

 

“Well, this is a lesbian couple,” Mulan says, shrugging, and the world makes sense again. “Apparently for that I’m perfect. My boss also might have used the word ‘ethnic’ to describe them but I went to my happy place because the urge to punch was rising.”

 

“Time?”

 

“Dinner, seven-ish,” Mulan says. “Dress fancy. We’re going to No. 9 Park.”

 

“They _really_ want these clients don’t they?” Emma says. She’s never been anywhere as expensive and classy as No. 9 Park before. “Unless the captain throws more ridiculous paperwork at me, I’ll be home by five.”

 

“Thanks,” Mulan says and rests her head on Emma’s shoulder, just for a moment. “Hey, it’s not for much longer.” Emma bumps her with her shoulder and Mulan returns to rolling dumplings.

 

Three months. It’s not that Emma’s counting down the days. She likes Mulan. As far as marriages go, this one’s a lot more stable than most she’s seen. But she’ll be glad when she’s no longer at risk of getting done for fraud. She hears police headquarters takes a dim view to their detectives being charged with felonies and she has her reasons for the increased anxiety in this area as of late.

 

They’d met in college, playing social soccer, and lived in a tiny apartment together in their junior and senior years. And then just kind of stayed living together. Emma hadn’t made it to college until she was twenty (“took a while to sort my life out,” she’d tell anyone who asked because no one actually wanted to hear the truth, which was “middling grades and no family led to the probability of insurmountable debt”) and Mulan was in the same boat, having spent a year at college in China before coming to the States. Emma liked scrubbing toilets and showers when she got stressed and Mulan was an amazing cook and so it worked beautifully, right through Emma’s time at the police academy and Mulan completing her MBA.

 

And then she’d come home to Mulan crying. That was alarming enough in itself, but the fact that she was crying in the living room had Emma frozen for a moment. She hadn’t even done that when Rory had broken up with her, all her crying from that failed relationship having taken place in her room when she thought Emma was out or sleeping. “What’s up?” Emma had asked, sliding onto the couch beside her and tentatively putting an arm around her shoulders.

 

“I can’t find another job. I’ve tried everywhere. No one’s willing to sponsor my employment. ‘Ms Hua, it’s a recession,’ they say. ‘You understand, Ms Hua.’ I have to go back home,” she’d said, pronouncing her surname ‘Who-ah’, which gave Emma a pretty good insight into the sorts of people who’d been interviewing her. “I can’t go back to Ganzhou. I can’t be gay in China.”

 

“Can you, like, get political asylum?” Emma had asked.

 

Mulan had laughed, the sound weak and watery. “My dad’s a retired general. My family’s wealthy. I live in an urban centre. I am in no way a candidate for asylum.” The ‘you idiot’ was implied.

 

The laughter was a good sign, Emma had felt. She’d patted Mulan’s leg and got up to boil the kettle for tea. When Mulan was upset or stressed, she always drank the jasmine green tea she got in bulk in Chinatown once a month, steeped for four minutes precisely. She made dumplings when she wanted something from Emma – though Emma knew she found the process of rolling them soothing. She compulsively wrote lists in cramped, tidy print and took pleasure in crossing things off them. She cheated on board games and had a deep-seated and debilitating crush on Mariska Hargitay on ‘Law and Order: SVU’.

 

All told, Emma felt like she knew pretty much all there was to know about Mulan.

 

“Hey,” she’d said, bringing the tea over to her, along with a couple of cookies from Mary Margaret who sometimes came around with baking and to judge Emma for her life choices. “I have an idea.”

 

Mulan had looked at her as Emma knelt in front of her. “Oh God, no,” she’d hissed.

 

*

 

“Honey, I’m home,” Marian calls out from the hallway and Regina smiles, checking on the rice for the _pollo agridulce_ she’d promised she’d make. Marian likes it. “Reminds me of my abuela’s cooking,” she says every time Regina makes something even vaguely Latin, and Regina just nods, even though she looked up Belizean cuisine on the internet once and it wasn’t all that similar to what she’d been learning about Puerto Rican food. Marian has this ease with her the mixture of cultures of which she is comprised, borne of a large, sociable family and the confidence instilled by a thousand shared traditions, and Regina is often envious. She wishes she’d ever met her Puerto Rican grandparents, wishes that she hadn’t learned everything she knows about her culture from recipe books and a Spanish language night class and the internet.

 

One day she’ll actually go to Puerto Rico.

 

“And what time do you call this, Mrs Álvarez?” she asks, kissing Marian’s cheek. “Did you get it?”

 

“Dinner tomorrow,” she says. “I made us sound like we were looking at a few banking options. I want them to really _want_ our business.”

 

“You’re a revelation,” Regina says. “Are you sure this is your first time?”

 

Marian grins. “Heist virgin right here,” she says, shrugging off the maroon pea coat she purloined from Regina’s wardrobe six months ago and flatly refuses to return. Regina rolls her eyes at the word ‘heist’. She’s told Marian a million times that it’s a ‘bank robbery’ – or a ‘bank job’ if she’s feeling crass – but Marian insists ‘heist’ is more fun and Regina doesn’t quite have the heart to utterly dissuade her. She’ll learn soon enough that this, what they’re doing, isn’t fun. “I feel kind of bad. The banker’s cute.”

 

“You’ll get over her when you’ve redistributed all that art purloined by the Nazis that I told you about,” Regina says, wandering back towards the kitchen, and Marian grins and rolls her eyes.

 

“You make me sound like Robin Hood,” she says, and Regina laughs.

                                                                                                                            

“So you won’t want any of the jewels we steal then,” she suggests and Marian rolls her eyes again.

 

Marian owns an art gallery in downtown Boston and Regina met her at an opening. They’d flirted a little, slept together after the opening, but from there, friendship – not romance – had bloomed. “Tell me your story,” Marian had said once over cocktails at Regina’s apartment and Regina had been just drunk enough to tell her.

 

“I was Nathaniel Gold’s second storey girl,” she’d said, tipping the dregs of her fifth margarita down her throat. “My mother is the Queen of Hearts – you know, crime boss in New York before she was taken out by a SWAT team four years ago – and she sold me to him when I was ten, part of some deal they had going on. I was little then; I fit into small spaces.”

 

“You’re little now,” Marian had snorted, head leaning against Regina’s thigh.

 

“Shut up,” Regina had said. “I did what he told me, when he told me, and I learned a lot, but when I got caught with a satchel full of stolen jewellery, Gold didn’t bail me out. I was fifteen, and I spent a year in juvie.”

 

The next morning, she’d woken feeling nauseous and it wasn’t due to the six margaritas. It was when she was packing up her townhouse (she would have to leave Boston, make a new life for herself, she’d heard good things about the Seattle art scene) that Marian called, leaving a message when Regina didn’t pick up. “Hey,” she said, voice full of supressed amusement. “I have an idea. Want to get your revenge?”

 

And, oh, Regina did.

 

*

 

Mulan’s nervous, Emma can tell by the way her left hand twists into the fabric of her dress and how she’s chewing on the straw of her gin and tonic as they wait at the bar for the couple.

 

“Calm down,” Emma mutters, grabbing her hand. “You’re trying to make a good impression. And it’s at that moment the two women enter and head straight towards them. Mulan stands and it’s only by some careful finagling of drinks on Emma’s part that stops her from spilling alcohol down the dress she spent half an hour putting on and pulling off in a frenzy.

 

Emma keeps her eyes on Mulan and comes to a horrifying realisation. She has a thing for one of them. She recognises the signs. Firstly, Mulan is willingly wearing a dress and Mulan never wears dresses. Secondly, for a girl who was captain of their college’s lacrosse team and their social soccer team and who, even when wasted, can walk in a straight line in high heeled boots, she’s become alarmingly clumsy. Thirdly, she’s flushed a blotchy red from her chest to the roots of her hair.

 

“Emma,” Mulan says and Emma shakes her head to clear it, turning from Mulan to the couple in front of them. “Meet the Álvarezes. Marian, Regina, this is my wife, Emma Swan.” She gestures at the women in turn.

 

Emma looks over and, oh God, she so hopes Mulan’s thing is for Marian because she’s pretty sure she just fell hopelessly in lust with Regina Álvarez, whose dark hair bounces at her shoulders and whose brown eyes glint amber in the dim light of the bar.  

 

She holds out a hand, shaking Marian’s first and then Regina, her hand lingering. Regina raises a dark eyebrow and her tongue darts out to swipe lips the colour of the claret Emma’s been drinking (she’s more of a beer girl, but this is hardly the place and there’s nothing wrong with a good red wine). “Charmed, I’m sure,” she drawls.

 

Emma sighs and then remembers herself and the purpose of this dinner (“we have to charm them,” Mulan had said so many times) and says, “I _am_ pretty charming.”

 

Regina looks surprised by her retort and not wholly unimpressed. The hostess guides them to the table. “So,” Marian says, leaning forward on her elbows and affording them all a good look at her not insubstantial cleavage. Mulan’s knife clatters to the floor. “How long have you two been married?”

 

She thinks Mulan might actually be sweating. It’s definitely Marian she has a thing for and Emma’s sickened that she feels relieved that they don’t have a crush on the same married lesbian. “Coming up two years,” Mulan says, looking over at Emma as if to ask for confirmation and so Emma pulls her gaze away from Regina and nods. “We met in college and, well, the rest is history. And yourselves?”

 

Marian takes Regina’s hand and looks at her with a gaze so soppy and loving it makes Emma want to puke. “Barely a year,” she says, pulling Regina’s hand to her lips and kissing it. Regina smiles at her wife, looking at her coyly from beneath long lashes.

 

“How’d you meet?” Emma asks, desperate to break the moment between the two of them.

 

Marian, with interjections from Regina, spins a tale of meeting at an art gallery, of drinks and friendship that blossomed into something more. Marian mentions an ex-husband, talks about being burnt before by long term relationships and being hesitant to give it another go. “But Regina was just special,” she says.

 

Regina rolls her eyes. “She makes it sound much more romantic than it actually was,” she says, and drinks. Emma certainly does not watch her throat as she swallows red wine because that would be a) weird and b) acknowledging that this crush is actually a thing that is happening.

 

The waitress brings out the first course and for a moment the only talk is exclamations of how magnificent the food is. “What do you do for a living?” Emma asks Regina once their plates are mostly clear.

 

“Oh, this and that,” Regina says. “I keep busy.”

 

“She’s a kept woman,” Marian jokes.

 

“I do some charitable work with foster children,” Regina says and Emma looks over at Mulan who glares at her. _Don’t even start_.

 

 _But she might be my dream woman_ , Emma tries to communicate with only her eyebrows but this is not an episode of ‘How I Met Your Mother’ so all this results in is Mulan stabbing her with her fork under the table and Regina looking at her like she’s sprouted an extra limb.

 

“Well,” Marian says, standing. “I might freshen up. Care to join me, darling?”

 

Regina stands as well and Emma watches her leave in that tight red dress and when she looks over at Mulan, realises Mulan is doing the same with Marian. “You _like_ her,” Emma says and she tries to make her voice a sing-song to cover for the fact that Mulan liking someone makes her deeply anxious. They’d had a rule, early on: be discrete but do what (or who) you want. But things changed in the past six months.

 

“She’s married,” Mulan says, voice sharp as brittle glass. “And I know our rules. I just… It’ll be nice to have that one day. They’re so in love.”

 

“Soon,” Emma says. She’s never been all that interested in marriage, but she knows Mulan dreams about her perfect wedding, one not performed in a courthouse where she’s marrying her best friend with a couple of available college friends as witnesses, one where she can wear a white dress or maybe a tux and dance to some cheesy ballad like ‘At Last’ and where she can cry over the maid of honour’s toast (Emma’s been planning it for years because she’ll be damned if she lets a little thing like ‘being the ex-wife’ get in the way of being Mulan’s maid of honour and it’s going to be _amazing)_.

 

The minutes tick by and Marian and Regina are still absent. “Bet they’re in the bathroom making out,” Emma says.

 

“You’re such a freak, Swan,” Mulan says and then hushes her because the Álvarezes are returning.

 

“Sorry about that,” Marian says, guiding Regina to her seat with a hand at the small of her back. Emma notices that Regina has re-applied her lipstick and she hates that she notices that and she also hates that her brain catalogues the reasons _why_ Regina had to re-do her lipstick. “So where were we?”

 

“What do you do, Emma?” Regina asks.

 

“I’m a detective,” she says. “Moved precincts six months ago and out of auto theft into robbery.” She frowns as she speaks. ‘Moved precincts’ made it sound like she’d had some say in the matter, like she’d chosen this, rather than the fact that she was forcibly removed when she outed Detective Jones for taking bribes. People didn’t want to work with the nark, especially not the gay, female nark.

 

Marian chokes on her drink and Emma can’t help but notice the brief flash of panic that crosses Regina’s features before she smiles. “Fascinating,” she says, in a tone that could not possibly convey more boredom.

 

*

 

Regina’s hand clenches Marian’s under the table. Of all the hideous coincidences… “Fascinating,” she says, clenching her jaw. Emma’s staring at her all too knowingly and she needs to say something that’ll stop her from being suspicious. “Given the current climate, you can understand my discomfort in regards to the police.”

 

Emma grimaces, fingers tapping nervously against the dark wood of the table, and glancing at Marian as she does so. “I get it,” she says. Regina knows she doesn’t really, but at least she’s not trying to make excuses or get defensive and that’s something.

 

Mulan places a hand over Emma’s to still it. “What sort of art does your gallery exhibit, Mrs Álvarez?”

 

The conversation now steered into more comfortable territory, Regina can calm her heart and focus on the business of eating. She darts frequent looks across at Emma and keeps finding her looking at her. At least twice Emma loses track of the conversation with staring. Initially, Regina thinks she’s still suspicious of that brief panic, but then she notices that it’s not a guarded look, not a mistrustful one, but soft. Almost, dare Regina say it, romantic?

 

Well, well, Regina thinks, licking dark chocolate pot de crème from her spoon, and grinning across at Emma, whose eyes widen before she hurriedly turns to Mulan. Poor, sad Mulan.

 

Still, she thinks they can use this. If Emma finds her attractive she’ll underestimate her. She’ll be inclined to think the best of her. And if word gets out about their planned robbery (and word sometimes does get out about such things because no matter how _good_ Regina is, she cannot plan a bank job alone particularly when she has no skills with technology and will have to find someone to teach her how to dismantle alarms and motion sensors) Emma will discount her.

 

She smiles at Emma. “You’ve been awfully quiet this evening, Detective Swan.”

 

“Long day at work,” Emma says, looking mildly discomfited, as if not quite sure how to handle Regina’s smiles.

 

“You seemed interested in my charitable work before,” she says. “A lot of it’s fundraising, to be honest, but I try and organise events for the children and spend time with them, as well as presents at Christmas and on birthdays, little things like that.”

 

Emma nods. “I was in the system,” she says. “From birth. I guess… I mean, I really respect what you’re doing. I could’ve done with someone who wanted to spend time with me once in a while.” She speaks stiffly, as though she’s unused to talking about it, and Regina feels an unexpected and unwelcome tug at her heart when she looks into Emma’s eyes.

 

“I’m sorry,” Regina says and reaches out a hand before she can stop herself, clasping Emma’s, and she feels this jolt of electricity surge through her.

 

Marian kicks her sharply beneath the table and, later, as they walk home (to Regina’s home, really) Marian links an arm in hers, always more tactile when she’s been drinking. “Be careful, dear,” she says.

 

Regina tenses. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

 

“Don’t you?” Marian asks. “This might be a sham of a marriage but theirs isn’t.”

 

“There’s only one life I want to ruin,” Regina says. “And he did not have dinner with us.” Still, she lies awake that night, thinking about Emma’s hands, palms dry, nails short and unadorned, her touch warming.

 

*

 

“Swan,” Captain Spencer yells. “In here.”

 

Emma looks across her desk at Leroy. “What’d you do to piss off Spencer?” he grunts. She knows it’s no coincidence that the two rejects of the precinct – Emma for being a nark because word spreads across precincts (and also the small matters of her gender and sexuality), and Leroy for his surliness – have been partnered together.

 

“Nothing, I don’t think,” she says, brain searching for any recent fuck-ups. Nothing comes to mind. She approaches the captain’s office, knocking and entering.

 

“Right, Swan,” Spencer says, glancing up from the files on his desk briefly before returning to them. “You’re wanted down at Boston National Bank.”

 

Dread pools in Emma’s stomach. “Is Mulan all right?”

 

“What? Course she’s fine,” he says and she breathes out, the relief dizzying. “We’ve got wind of some security concerns down there,” he says. “The manager asked if we could send someone down to check in with their security team at some point today.”

 

“Sure,” she says. “Isn’t this kind of out of my purview though? Like, banks are federal jurisdiction.”

 

“The manager’s anxious not to make a fuss,” he says. “But there’s a lot of valuable stuff in their vaults. They knew one of their own had a wife who worked robbery. Thought you could stop by a couple of times, see if there’s anything in these rumours.” He hands her a file. “What we’re hearing sounds like a professional job – one of their tech guys got wind of some stuff to do with disabling alarm systems – not some losers with guns and balaclavas.”

 

“I’ll check it out,” she says, though really this should be an ordinary cop’s job, not hers. Robbery’s quiet at the moment though and filing paperwork is making her fidget and itch and irritate Leroy and since he’s the only partner she’s been able to stand since she was made detective, she’s loath to give him up. So instead of eating at her desk like she does most lunchtimes, she grabs her jacket and heads to a deli around the corner from Mulan’s work. She’ll buy them both lunch. The deli is really busy, warning her the sandwiches will be at least a ten minute wait – and she settles in at a table, taking out her phone. _Bringing you lunch_ , she texts. _Best wife EVER._

 

Mulan’s reply comes a moment later. _You certainly are._

 

“Detective Swan?” She looks up and sees Regina Álvarez and her traitorous, horrifying stomach starts performing somersaults.

 

“Hey!” she says, a little too chipper perhaps. “You ordered yet?”

 

“Yes.” She sighs. “There are no other seats. Do you mind?” She gestures at the empty chair across from Emma.

 

“No, I mean, go ahead,” Emma says, barely resisting the insane urge to leap up and pull the chair out for her. “So what brings you down here?”

 

“I’ve been visiting Marian at the gallery,” she says. “But she’s too busy to have lunch with me so I thought I’d go to the park and eat.”

 

“Sounds blissful,” Emma says. “I’m taking lunch to Mulan.”

 

“How sweet,” Regina says, or drawls really, drawls in that deep, throaty voice that’s just doing things to Emma.

 

“Yeah, well,” Emma mumbles. She can’t mention anything about the job. “Been a bad wife lately. Too much overtime.”

 

Regina’s nails are painted a deep red that matches her lipstick and Emma cannot stop staring at her lips, at the flash of white teeth, the flick of pink tongue shooting out between them. “I suppose you have a lot of making up to do,” she says and raises an eyebrow. Emma feels her face flush and Regina chuckles. “It’s nice to know where your thoughts are, Detective.”

 

“I can’t help it when you _insinuate_ stuff,” Emma says hotly. “How’s Marian?”

 

“Well,” Regina says. “Busy. We both are.”

 

“You with your foster kids?” Emma asks. “What made you want to work with them?”

 

“I have my reasons,” Regina says and purses her lips. “You didn’t change your names. You and Mulan.”

 

“No,” Emma says. “Didn’t see why either of us should. Are you the original Álvarez or was that Marian?” Honestly, it could be either of them so far as Emma can tell, unlike with her and Mulan where whatever surname they’d gone with it would become quickly clear who’d caved. Emma suits Hua as little as Mulan would suit Swan and neither of them were interested in budging, not for something that they never intended would last. Mary Margaret had been disappointed, had talked at Emma about tradition and the importance of cohesion in families and it had been all Emma could do to simply grit her teeth and ignore her former roommate – because screaming about patriarchy and the importance of names and how blindly following what people expect leads to some of the shittiest things in human history is not something Mary Margaret, who married David Nolan in her third year of college, would have taken well.

 

“Marian,” Regina says. “I was more than happy to escape my past.” Emma just nods, though she finds herself wanting to ask so desperately. _What is it about your past that is so dreadful you’d leave your name behind? What is it about your past that makes you feel empathy for the orphaned and unwanted?_

 

Instead, she says, “they do amazing sandwiches here,” and Regina laughs again, deep and throaty and intoxicating, and Emma is totally, 100 percent fucked and the fact that if it weren’t for Regina’s own marriage she’d leap into bed with this woman in a heartbeat terrifies her. Some of her colleagues would be only too delighted to see her caught committing fraud, knocking Detective Swan, the ‘champion of truth and justice’ as Jones had scathingly hissed at her as he’d cleared his desk, down from her high horse.

 

“Order for Swan,” the guy behind the counter yells in a strong Boston accent.

 

“Well,” Emma says, standing. “This has been nice.”

 

“I’ll see you around, Emma Swan,” Regina says and Emma stumbles when she walks to the counter to collect the sandwiches and coffee.

 

She collapses into the chair beside Mulan’s desk five minutes later. “I’m so screwed,” she says, handing Mulan her weird vegetarian sandwich and unwrapping her own grilled cheese, provolone oozing out the sides and the grease making the brown paper translucent.

 

“Not so loud,” Mulan admonishes. “Open plan office.”

 

“Sorry,” Emma whispers, mouth full of bread and cheese. “I just bumped into Regina Álvarez. A little rattled.”

 

“Married,” Mulan says, washing down a bite of sandwich with coffee. “As, might I remind you, are you.”

 

“I know,” Emma says, sighing. “It’s just a stupid crush. I’ll get over it.” And she will, probably, because it’s not like she’s going to see Regina around again. She licks grease from her fingers and Mulan winces.

 

“So what brings you down here?” she asks.

 

“I’m actually meeting with your manager,” Emma says. “Rumours of a robbery.”

 

“Weird,” Mulan says, pulling a bean sprout from her sandwich and crunches on it. “Though we hear rumours, like, every other week. I guess they’ve worked out they’ve got an in with you, thanks to me. Sorry.”

 

Emma shrugs. “That’s what Spencer reckoned. Gets me out from under his eye at least. Besides,” she adds, opening Mulan’s desk drawer and grabbing a packet of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, “you have secret chocolate.” She stands, shoving the chocolate into her jacket pocket and grabbing her coffee. “I’m off to sweet talk your manager.”

 

“Good luck,” Mulan says and spins back to her computer, coffee in her hand.

 

*

 

“So,” Mulan says, leading them to an elevator and scanning her security card. “These are the vaults. We can store anything of value – art, jewellery, coin collections… You name it.”

 

They continue down corridors, Marian burbling away to Mulan, playing off this crush the banker seems to have on her. Marian’s chatter does an excellent job of distracting attention from Regina, whose eyes flick, noting every detail of the long corridor.

 

“Can you tell us about the security measures in place?” Marian asks and so Mulan explains – the combination of motion sensors and codes, keys to the individual vaults and boxes, cameras, a 24/7 security team…

 

It’s going to be tough, Regina thinks. She’s been out of the business since her early 20s – since she’d accrued enough ill-gotten capital to retire with a good lifestyle and fleeced as many of Gold’s associates as possible – and she’s never done a bank job before.  

 

But if it goes as planned she’ll finally have her revenge.

 

Mulan introduces them to the head of security – a hatchet-faced elderly woman who barely acknowledges them, staring right through them. She pats Regina on the butt as they pass by though and she _knows_ the security roster is now in her coat pocket.

 

Eugenia Lucas, otherwise known as ‘Granny’, was Gold’s housekeeper back in the day – and his weapons expert for the jobs with which Regina typically was not involved. When she committed her first burglary, Granny was there to patch her up afterwards. “Hold still, child,” she’d said as Regina had shied away from the iodine to clean up the nasty scrape down her calf. “The sting means it’s working.”

 

“But it hurts,” Regina had said, sniffing. She’d been tired and cold and her leg hurt and she missed Papa and what she’d just been told to do was _bad_ because Papa had always said stealing was wrong.

 

“You’re a big girl,” Granny had said, though she’d wrapped an arm around Regina anyway and squeezed.

 

Granny apparently got the security job because Gold had wanted to have one of his people protecting his bounty but when Regina had contacted her she’d jumped at the chance to get one over Gold. “He’s got his claws in my Ruby,” she’d said to Regina when they’d talked. “It’s bad enough he got her mother.” Regina remembers Anita; she’d heard about the over-dose from an associate once she’d escaped from Gold’s clutches.

 

They’re shown around the vault and Regina makes careful note of the make and model of all the security equipment. When they return to the bank foyer, Emma is exiting the manager’s office, tucking a sheath of paper into her bag. Regina feels her skin grow hot and too tight when she sees her and Emma just does this awkward half-wave and strides over. She’s in the same awful red leather jacket. “Emma!” Marian says. “What are you doing here?”

 

“I just thought I’d take the wife out for lunch,” Emma says. She’s lying, Regina knows it, and she should be worried. She is worried that a robbery detective is sniffing around the bank she plans to rob. But an equal part of her is excited to see Emma again. She’s pulled her curls back into a ponytail and it suits her and Regina wishes she wasn’t having these sorts of thoughts. “Would you both like to join us?”

 

Mulan grimaces and Regina pinches Marian’s shoulder but the message doesn’t go through. “We’d love to,” Marian says and so they head around the corner to a diner.

 

“They do the best fries in Boston,” Emma says as they’re seated at a booth. They order, Emma ordering two plates of fries for the table, and Regina sighs. She’s sitting across from her in the cramped booth and her foot keeps meeting Emma’s calf. Every time they touch, Emma blushes, and she’s torn between finding it hilarious and hoping she’s not going pink herself. Marian has monopolised Mulan’s attention, though she has her arm along the back of the booth and if Regina chose to lean back her head would rest against it.

 

“Why were you really at the bank?” Regina asks.

 

“Just picking something up,” Emma says after a beat. “Have you decided to go with Boston National?”

 

“We’re tossing up between two,” she says. “We’ll have decided by the end of the week. Frankly, I’m a little concerned about security at Boston National.”

 

“Oh?” Emma asks. Their food arrives, and Regina watches as half a slice of lasagne disappears from Emma’s plate before Regina’s even had time to take a bite of her chicken panini. “Sorry,” Emma says. “Habit. You don’t eat quickly in group homes, you don’t eat.” Regina has to school her face into a neutral expression, because all she wants to do is take Emma home and cook for her and she suspects that looks a lot like ‘lovesick’ on her features. “So the security?”

 

“Yes. Keys?” Regina says. “I mean, I’m no expert but keys are easily stolen, easily copied.”

 

“It’s not the only security at the bank,” Emma says.

 

“I’m sure it’s not,” she says. “Perhaps we should change the subject before I make any more slights at your wife’s workplace.” She can’t help the curl of her lips at the word ‘wife’ and she hopes Emma didn’t notice.

 

“Of course. We’ve been having excellent weather, haven’t we?” Emma asks, grinning.

 

“I fear it looks like rain,” Regina replies, unable to stop her smile unfurling.

 

“That will be good for my petunias,” Emma says and for a brief, embarrassed moment Regina takes her seriously and is about to ask about them when she sees the tiniest smirk on Emma’s lips because Emma has realised that Regina thinks she’s being serious.

 

“Hilarious,” she says, and they lapse into silence again.

 

“So,” Emma says, grabbing a handful of fries and dunking them all at once in the ketchup. Regina wrinkles her nose. “Kids on the horizon for you two?”

 

Regina is in the midst of drinking coffee and she chokes on it. “I beg your pardon?”

 

Emma squeezes her eyes shut. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I’m not good at conversation.”

 

Regina frowns. “I’d like to adopt,” she says. “Maybe someday.” She’s always wanted children; having a relationship has always been secondary in importance to having a son or daughter.  She’d be better than her mother, not that it would be hard. She’d love her child so much.

 

Emma smiles. She has a fleck of ketchup at the side of her mouth, which is simultaneously disgusting and totally gorgeous. “I think you’d be wonderful.”

 

And Regina doesn’t try to stop the smile that blooms across her face.

 

*

 

Emma brings her work home. It’s not an actual case, she reasons, and therefore it’s acceptable for her to read over information while Mulan watches ‘Law and Order: SVU’ reruns. Mulan’s boss had suggested she look into all the people who had recently joined or met with a banker to join. She’s crossed off several already and now she’s up to the Álvarezes.

 

Mulan gestures the bowl of popcorn in her vague direction and Emma grabs a handful, dropping a few kernels on her laptop keypad in her efforts to hold it all. There’s nothing on Marian. A divorce from some guy called Robin Locksley, which is just hilarious. She tells Mulan who grimaces. “I don’t need to know, Em.”

 

She can’t find Regina Álvarez in the system and she realises she doesn’t know her maiden name. Eventually she tracks down the marriage certificate. Mills. Huh. She does some general googling of the name and an article crops up about ‘The Queen of Hearts’. Emma’s heard of her of course – the scourge of all organised crime in New York City for over twenty years until she was taken out in a rain of gunfire. She’s not really sure why she got the nickname, except that journalists seem obsessed with giving villains stupid nicknames. She scrolls through the article and finds the sentences. _Cora Mills is survived by a daughter, Regina Mills._

 

It could just be a coincidence but there’s something in the look of Cora Mills that resembles Regina – despite Cora being white and Regina at least part-Latina. She logs into one of the databases that she really shouldn’t be searching at home and searches Regina Mills. No hits. “Just calling someone,” she says and Mulan shrugs. She dials, listens to the ring.

 

“Will,” she says. “I need a favour. Anything you can dig up on Regina Mills, as quickly as possible.” It’s not really corrupt, she reasons. She’s not going to do anything with the information. She just needs to know.

 

“Ugh, Swan,” he says. “I was about to head pub-ward.”

 

“You owe me,” Emma says and he sighs, knowing the truth of the statement.

 

“Check your emails in an hour or so,” he says and hangs up.

 

An hour later, after some obsessive google stalking that only found her a closed Facebook profile and a Twitter account with three tweets from six years ago attached, her phone dings. _Interesting friends you’ve got, Swan._ A file is attached. A scan of a sealed record. She doesn’t even want to know how Will gets this shit, let alone how quickly. She could delete it without reading. That’d be the right thing to do. Honestly, the right thing to do would have been not to request information from sketchy sources in the first place.

 

She opens it though; of course she does. The girl in the photo is a baby, fifteen years old, glaring at the camera. And it’s unmistakably Regina; the same nose, the dark curls, the glare. She reads the report, caught with several pieces of antique jewellery. She claimed she’d been working for a man named Nathaniel Gold. No one bought it. She ended up in juvenile detention for a year. Nothing since then.

 

The name sounds familiar though. “Hey,” she says and Mulan dims the TV. “Nathaniel Gold? Ring any bells?”

 

“Big client of ours,” Mulan says. “Has his own vault inside our vault. Why?”

 

“No reason,” Emma says but she’s starting to put together the pieces. Mulan turns the volume up and for a moment Emma sits, staring at Mariska Hargitay on the screen. The connection between Regina and Gold has to mean something. “I have to go out,” she says, stuffing her feet into boots and grabbing her jacket.

 

*

 

There’s a knock at the door and Regina answers. Marian’s out – a gallery opening that she’s told her will run late – and Regina’s putting together the finishing touches for the job. There’s a girl at her front door. “You Regina?” she asks. She’s wearing a hoodie and exercise leggings, though Regina spots a splash of red in her dark hair that is mostly hidden beneath the hood. She’s carrying a pie.

 

“Yes,” Regina says.

 

“Granny asked me to give you this,” she says and hands her the pie, before turning on her heel and running into the dark. Regina watches the granddaughter run off before bringing the pie inside and cutting herself a slice. It’s all so very Granny to bake the copy of a key into a pie and she finds it easily in the apple filling, rinsing it in the sink and tucking it away in her handbag.

 

This is the last piece of the puzzle. Granny’s on the night shift tomorrow and she’s willing to be knocked out in the name of the job. She’s got the key. She’s been taught how to disable the motion sensors and cameras. She snagged a security card from someone’s desk. Everything is in order.

 

Gold has a collecting habit, keeping items as trophies. She knows there’s the purloined artworks – which almost certainly will not be on the bank’s manifest. There’s also a great deal of jewellery that he would be furious to lose and precious metals. She puts the folder away, running herself a bath. Her last night to relax.

 

She has changed into a robe, poured herself a glass of red wine and the bathtub is full when there’s another knock at the door. Sighing, she moves through the house to answer it. The knock sounds again, agitated. She opens it.

 

Emma Swan is standing at her front door, hand poised to knock a third time, and Regina just stares at her for a moment. “Detective Swan,” she says. “What on earth are you doing here?”

 

“Don’t do it, Regina,” Emma says. Her fist clenches and unclenches, and her lips turn down at the corners, harsh lines carved into the sides.

 

Regina wraps the silk robe tighter around herself. “I suppose you had better come in,” she says. “I wouldn’t want you to be spouting garbage where the neighbours could hear.”

 

Emma follows her into the house and upstairs, through the bedroom and into the bathroom. “This is a bathroom,” she says.

 

“I can see why you made detective,” Regina replies caustically. “I was about to bathe before you arrived. I see no reason to desist simply because you’re here to accuse me of crime.” She removes her robe and steps into the water, letting the bubbles cover her to her neck and heaving a great sigh of contentment as the heat envelops her. When she looks at Emma, she’s staring determinedly in the opposite direction. It’s sweet really. “Now,” Regina says. “What exactly are you accusing me of doing?”

 

“Casing Boston National,” Emma says. “I know you have a grudge against Nathaniel Gold. I know you have a criminal record. I know your mother was one of the most feared crime bosses this country has ever seen.”

 

“And so you think, because of this, that I must be planning a bank robbery?” Regina laughs. “If you know about my past, you know I was a pawn. I don’t have the smarts to plan anything.”

 

“Liar,” Emma says. “Please, don’t do it. Don’t make me have to arrest you.”

 

“Did you know that when I went to juvie, I had a boyfriend?” Regina says. The bath is too warm and the wine has gone straight to her head. “He was Gold’s mechanic. I was only fifteen but when I turned eighteen we were going to get married. He gave me a ring.” She remembers Daniel, his sweet, earnest face, streaked with grease, his smile, the caress of his thumb against her jaw. “When I got out, Gold had sent him deliberately into the line of fire, and had him killed. He took the ring. He’d gotten rid of all of Daniel’s stuff by the time I got out.”

 

“Nathaniel Gold has never been charged with anything,” Emma says.

 

Regina feels her face twist into a scowl. “Well, my mistake then. Obviously my mother didn’t sell me off to him when I was barely ten. Obviously he didn’t make me climb into people’s homes and businesses to steal things. Sometimes it was jewellery or money. Sometimes it was a chipped cup or a crystal unicorn, something with no value except for to the person who owned it. The unicorn stabbed me in the thigh when I was getting it out, gave me four stitches.” She lifts her left leg out of the water, extending it and waiting until Emma’s eyes are focused on her, on her legs. “I still have the scar. Amongst others.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Emma says. “I really am. But this quest for vengeance is going to get you arrested.”

 

“There’s no quest,” Regina says. “There’s no job. I live a quiet life, Detective Swan.” The water has grown tepid and she stands and this time Emma doesn’t turn away but looks at her, eyes grazing across her body and it’s been a long time since anyone has seen her like this, really seen her. Marian often barges in when Regina’s in the shower to brush her teeth because she has no boundaries or body shame but there’s no real attraction there.

 

“Would you like a towel?” Emma asks and her voice is husky and her eyes haven’t moved from Regina. She nods and Emma stands, grabbing a towel from the rail (it’s Marian’s towel actually but Regina finds she doesn’t care in this moment) and stepping forward, eyes fixed on Regina. She hands her the towel and their hands brush and Regina knows it’s going to happen before it happens.

 

Emma pulls her forward and kisses her.

 

*

 

She’s kissing Regina Álvarez. She has her hands fisted in damp hair and her mouth moves against full lips and Regina arches into her, hands clutching at Emma’s jacket, tugging her closer and she can feel the damp seep through the thin cotton of her tank top.

 

She’s kissing Regina Álvarez _née_ Mills because Regina is married. And a possible future criminal. She’s going to go to hell.

 

She’ll probably like it, she thinks, when Regina’s fist clutches the front of her top, pushing her towards the open bathroom door, and Emma stumbles backwards, Regina’s mouth latched onto her neck now, and all Emma can do is gasp as she pushes her, nipping and sucking, into the bedroom.

 

“What are we doing?” Emma asks. Regina has set her down on the maroon bedspread and she’s breathing heavily and her heart is pounding so loudly, the quick drumbeat sound surely audible to Regina.

 

“Less talking,” Regina says and she’s beautifully, resplendently naked, beads of water still sliding down her skin. Emma follows one drop, which falls from a lock of hair, slides down the olive skin of her stomach, and hangs for a moment at her belly button before dribbling past it and disappearing. And then she moves, straddling Emma and Emma becomes lost in the curves and planes of her body, in the floral smell of her soap, the feel of velvet-soft skin, the taste of salt and tart and something altogether more undefinable.

 

And Regina’s back arches and her hands scrape and claw at Emma’s back and the pain is what keeps Emma grounded, reminds her that this is wrong, awful. She is a terrible person.

 

But she can’t stop and when Regina comes, a string of curses exploding from her lips, she smiles and pushes Emma down, pulling up her tank top and scrabbling with her jeans until Emma lifts her hips to let her pull them down just enough and, _God_ , if she has to go to hell, this has got to be the best possible way to get there because Regina’s tongue is circling her clitoris and her hands clench at Emma’s thighs and her breath is warm against her. It’s all Emma can do to stop herself from clenching her fist into Regina’s hair and pull her closer.

 

She shatters into a thousand pieces when she comes, body shuddering and a low moan escaping her lips and for a moment all she can do is lie back on Regina’s luxurious bedspread and taste the iron from where she bit her lower lip so hard she has started bleeding. “You’re married,” Emma says when the haze has lifted.

 

“As are you,” Regina says and Emma wants to say ‘not really’ or ‘it’s fake’ or ‘green card marriage’ or anything that might make this less terrible for Regina even if she can’t make it less awful for herself but she can’t betray Mulan – not like that anyway.

 

“What do we do?” She leans on her elbows, watching Regina as she grabs a pyjamas shirt, pulling it over her head.

 

“You leave here,” Regina says. The warmth and pliancy is gone, and her face is once again a mask. “And you leave me alone.”

 

“I can’t do that if you commit a bank robbery,” Emma reminds her. “Please, Regina, don’t do anything you can’t come back from.”

 

“I think you should go,” Regina says. “My _wife_ will be home soon.”

 

Emma pulls up her jeans and underwear and leaves, wrapping her jacket around herself and drawing her jaw into a tight line. She showers before getting into bed next to Mulan, scrubbing at her skin until she feels raw and red and crying into the stream of water. Maybe she’s wrong. Maybe Regina isn’t planning to rob a bank. Maybe no one will find out she cheated on her wife, three months before she gets her Green Card and they can divorce with impunity. Maybe she hasn’t ruined everything forever.

 

She doesn’t sleep.

 

*

 

Everything is going according to plan, Regina thinks as she types in the codes to the bank’s back entrance with gloved fingers and disables the alarm. They really should update their model. It’s so easy to hack – especially when you know someone like Archie Hopper.

 

Marian swipes the security card she stole (just lying there on the edge of a desk and people should be more careful. Really, they’re doing Boston National a favour). Granny’s seated at the security desk, her head fallen forward, and Regina sees the half empty mug of tea, which she knows will have traces of some drug designed to knock her out in it when tested. She smiles and steals her keys.

 

Marian, masked, coats the camera lenses with spray paint. Regina counted six along the corridor when they were down there with Mulan a week earlier and noted their locations on the map she drew. “Get them all?” she hisses and Marian nods.

 

As per the plan, Granny hasn’t logged out of the computer and Regina finds the log for the motion detectors within the vault. It is the work of moments to disable them. Hopper was worth every penny she paid him.

 

They reach the vaults, scan the security card and they’re in, cloistered in the metal room with safety deposit boxes and doors leading to the vaults for high-rolling customers.

 

“Which one’s Gold’s?” Marian whispers.

 

Regina pulls out the key and strides forward. She types in a code (and Gold has such arrogance, such _hubris_ , that he always uses the same code and assumes no one will ever figure it out but Regina did when she was fourteen because she knows people and she knows Gold and, most importantly, she knows his son’s birth date) and places the key in the lock, twisting it. The door clicks open.

 

And they’re in.

 

The vault looks a lot like Gold’s home. There are items everywhere, from rubbish to priceless artefacts, no rhyme or reason to the organisation. Marian sneezes because apparently vaults are not dusted regularly. “Find the paintings you want quickly,” Regina says and Marian gets to work, rifling through Gold’s stuff with such fervour Regina is grateful for the leather gloves she’s wearing.

 

“Holy shit,” she says. “I think this is an actual Picasso!”

 

Regina stares around at the vault. Emma just won’t leave her brain. _Don’t do anything you can’t come back from._ This is her chance though, her vengeance – for Daniel, for her own ruined life… She eyes a filing cabinet curiously, the drawers are locked. She remembers this cabinet; she wasn’t anticipating seeing it in the vault because he used to keep it in his study.

 

“I’ve got them,” Marian says. She’s placing three paintings into the large art folio she brought with her. “Regina? Look alive.”

 

 _Don’t do anything you can’t come back from._ But she’s already done something she can’t come back from. There’s nothing for her in Boston now. “I’ll miss them,” she says, thinking of the foster kids she’s been working with. She could have adopted one of them, someone hard to place, surly, unwanted. Used her ill-gotten money for good. “I’ll miss her.”

 

“What?” Marian says. “Regina, are you talking to yourself?”

 

Regina shakes her head, opening the ornate box before her and finding a messy clump of jewellery. “Sorry,” she says. “Bad memories. I’m here now.”

 

*

 

Emma is on her way to work, coffee in hand, when she gets the call from Spencer. “Swan, get your ass to Boston National. There’s been a robbery.”

 

Her heart sinks, her palm holding the phone suddenly sweaty, and she has to fight the urge to cry, clenching her jaw and taking off at a loping run to Boston National. When she arrives at the bank, one of the officers is interviewing the security woman – someone Lucas she thinks? “She’ll lose her job for this,” Leroy says. “Poor old bat.”

 

She finds the sympathy in Leroy’s voice disconcerting. “You sweet on her, Leroy?” He just grunts and Emma lets him lead the way to the vaults.

 

“It’s some guy called Nathaniel Gold’s vault,” he says. “Grunts have done their thing, taken finger prints, checked for any physical evidence.”

 

“Do we have the log of what was held here?” He hands it to her. “We’ll have to catalogue at some point, figure out what’s missing, once I’ve had a look.”

 

The vault’s a mess, a filing cabinet knocked over, but it still seems pretty full, a box full of jewellery open but the jewels inside apparently untouched judging by the quantity, stacks of heirlooms around the place. She bends down and picks up one of the files, spilling out of the cabinet and flicks through. “Leroy,” she says. “Can you take a look at this?”

 

He skims over it and his bleary eyes widen. “Is that…”

 

“Yup,” Emma says, stomach heaving. “He’s been buying and selling children.”

 

Apparently that’s not the only thing Nathaniel Gold has been doing over a very long lifetime. There are contracts and papers in there for everything from blackmail and extortion right through to assassinations. As Leroy checks the room for evidence of who broke in, Emma pores over the files and when she gets twenty-five years back she finds it. Regina’s contract. The deal to support Cora Mills in her criminal activities in New York City, in exchange for her daughter, signed by both parties. “I might be sick,” she says.

 

“You and me both, sister,” Leroy says.

 

“Who keeps this stuff?” she asks. “It’s like they’re trophies.”

 

“A compulsion,” Leroy says. “Damn stupid one too. Why keep paperwork of all your criminal activity?”

 

“I think this is out of our department now,” she says. “This might be for the FBI.”

 

“We still got to process the robbery, Swan,” Leroy says. They let a couple of officers in to catalogue the vault and figure out what’s missing and Leroy heads upstairs to talk to the security guard and Emma to the bank’s manager. The conversation is not fruitful, the manager too furious and Emma trying to keep any information to herself given that the investigation is still pending.

 

“Uh, Detective Swan?” one of the officers says. “We’ve finished cataloguing.”

 

“What was missing?”

 

“Nothing,” the officer says. “Well, one ring, listed as gold with cubic zirconia ornament, in poor condition. Only worth a couple of hundred bucks.”

 

“Well, I’m sure Mr Gold will be very relieved,” Emma says. “That is, until the feds catch up with him.” God, Regina’s smart. If she wasn’t sure before, she knows for certain that filing cabinet was knocked over deliberately, that Regina pulled the particularly awful files out and spread them across the vault floor to ensure they’d read them. If the cabinet had been upright and locked, they wouldn’t have broken into it. They would have waited for Gold to get there and he would have checked and said everything was there and Emma would have thought nothing more of it.

 

She’s certainly got her revenge.

 

She’s home late that night – and knows Spencer will moan about the overtime he has to pay her – but Mulan’s waiting up, reading on the couch. “There’s pasta in the fridge,” she says and Emma grabs it, nuking it for a couple of minutes and downing half a bottle of beer while she waits.

 

She collapses across from Mulan on the couch and inhales pasta. She hasn’t eaten except for several doughnuts bought by Leroy on his way back to the station. “I slept with Regina last night,” she says into the silence.

 

Mulan looks at her over her black-rimmed reading glasses. “I’m sorry?”

 

“I fucked Regina Álvarez,” Emma says and then she’s crying. “I screwed up so badly.”

 

Mulan’s mouth twists into a grimace. “Idiot,” she says and then leans forward and hugs Emma, letting her sob into her shirt. She cries about the sex, about the robbery, about Regina and her Daniel, about all the people in Nathaniel Gold’s filing cabinet. She cries for herself, for the fact that she found a girl worth fighting for and she’s married and almost certainly guilty of robbery and if Emma finds even a shred of evidence she’s going to have to bring her in.

 

“I guess you’ve got an airtight reason for the divorce now,” Emma says when she’s calmed down enough to speak, though her voice is still watery.

 

“I guess so,” Mulan says and quirks her eyebrow. “Mary Margaret’s going to literally murder you.” And Emma’s crying again, though she laughs through her tears.  

 

*

 

“Goodbye, darling,” Marian says, wrapping an arm around Regina and kissing her cheek. Pushing her hair back from her ear, she whispers, “be happy. Keep in touch.”

 

“I’ll miss you,” Regina says. She has her tickets and passport in one hand, the A4 envelope with their divorce papers stuffed in the laptop bag over her shoulder. She’ll post them to her lawyer when she gets past security. “Now, go. You’ll miss your flight.”

 

She watches Marian leave, making her way through international security and turning back with a grin and a wave. Her phone rings and, without thinking, she answers. “Hello?”

 

“Hi.” It’s Emma and Regina feels this horrifying thrill at the sound of her voice, the realisation that she’s going to miss her coming on even stronger now that she knows she’ll most likely never see her again. “I’m at your place. No one’s home. I was hoping you could come into the station for a chat.”

 

“Sorry,” Regina says, heaving her bag back over her shoulder. “I’m at the airport.”

 

Emma laughs, though she sounds anything _but_ amused. “Really? Do you know who runs? The guilty.”

 

“Or perhaps it’s because I just had a fraught break up with my wife because of our infidelity, Detective Swan,” Regina says.

 

Emma sighs down the phone. “It still might be better for you in the long run if you come in and speak to us, Mrs Álvarez.” She sounds exhausted. Regina wonders if she read any of the files in that cabinet before the feds took over. She wonders if this is why Emma sounds like she hasn’t slept in a month.

 

“Am I being charged with anything?” Regina asks.

 

Emma is silent for a long moment. “Not at this stage, no.”

 

“Then I’m getting on that plane. Feel free to contact my lawyer, Kathryn Midas, if you have any further questions.” She hangs up and makes her way through security. Once at her gate, she settles in to wait for boarding and calls Kathryn. “I thought I should let you know that you may be contacted by the police.”

 

“Darling,” Kathryn says. “I have a conference call two minutes ago. Forward me the details.” And so Regina spends her remaining time in Boston crafting an email, outlining her alibi (and she knows her horribly nosy neighbours will have heard the taped sex noises she’d set to play at around eleven and been appropriately disgusted), her current state of affairs ( _expect our divorce papers in the post)_ and why Emma suspects her, even though she obviously had nothing to do with a bank robbery because how ludicrous and absurd is that, Kathryn?

 

It’s when she’s on the plane (to Puerto Rico, because such is her sentimentality, she’s not even leaving US territory and Marian had called her an idiot when she told her) that she cries. The woman in the seat beside her offers her a caramel and she sucks at the hardened sugar as she sobs.

 

But then she looks down at her hand and on her ring finger, instead of the gold wedding band, she has a battered cubic zirconia, cheap and not at all to her current tastes, and she knows the job was worth everything.

 

*

 

Emma scowls at the files on her desk. There’s not enough evidence. Officially, of course, Regina Álvarez has no criminal record. Though Marian is currently also out of the country – a tour of galleries in Europe, legitimised by the owner of the gallery for which she works – she rather cheerfully responded to Emma’s email to state that Regina was home with her all evening on the night in question (so now Emma knows Marian was involved) and their neighbours attested to the fact that they never saw or heard anyone leave the townhouse after eight in the evening, coupled with a rather vigorous round of sex heard through thin walls at approximately eleven. There wasn’t a shred of physical evidence in the vault. Regina has a rather aggressive lawyer who is working hard for her. In fact, the only evidence they do have is Gold insisting Regina Mills is behind this. And he’s not exactly a reliable source.

 

Unless Emma admits to her own corruption, they have nothing.

 

And that’s what’s killing her. She’s become what she hated, what she risked her career for not six months ago. Technically it shouldn’t even be her case in the first place, but the FBI haven’t taken an interest. They got Gold, who is _so_ much more interesting. Nothing was actually stolen, after all, Spencer had told her when he’d said she was to continue working it. She’s to treat it like a break in.

 

It’s easy to bury the case (Leroy’s already given up), to take on new investigations and let the Boston National investigation fester and die because she’s clearly the only person who cares.

 

On her day off, she tracks down the organisation Regina worked for, organising a meeting with the woman at a park. In an unofficial capacity, of course. The woman she meets is tiny, ginger and relentlessly cheerful. “Anna!” she says, holding out a hand. “You must be Emma Swan. Regina told me about you. How is she?”

 

“I don’t know,” Emma says. “She’s been … incommunicado.”

 

“She deserves a break,” Anna says. “She must be so excited to see where her father was born. She talked about it a lot. Ava, careful with the swing! Alex is only little.” The blonde kid at the swings yells an apology and starts pushing less boisterously.

 

“I was so impressed with the way she talked about the work you guys do,” Emma says. “Could’ve used it myself when I was growing up.”

 

Anna looks at her, head tilted. “Ex-system?” she asks and Emma nods. “Regina wasn’t but she was so broken when she started volunteering,” Anna says. “She never said, but I could tell. Being around these kids, it made her better.”

 

Not that much better, Emma thinks. “I’m glad,” she says.

 

That night she has nightmares about that ten-year-old girl passed off to a man like Gold. She’s seen enough of the ongoing investigation into Gold to know exactly what he’s capable of. She’d seen him on the news, being brought in to the Bureau. Shark eyes and a smile that would give even the most hardened cop nightmares, gold teeth glinting. She wakes up whimpering and finds Mulan awake. “What’s wrong?”

 

“Nothing,” she says.

 

“You miss her,” Mulan says.

 

“No,” Emma lies. She broke up a marriage, even if she’s now thinking that Marian and Regina’s marriage was as bogus as her own with Mulan. She risked her best friend being deported because she was, what? Horny?

 

“I heard from Marian Álvarez,” Mulan says. She doesn’t know anything about Emma’s investigation. Emma couldn’t bring herself to tell Mulan she slept with a potential subject. Mulan’s honour is unimpeachable and Emma’s always strived to live up to it. “She emailed about their divorce, to explain that they’d not be banking with us. She says Regina’s in Puerto Rico.”

 

And life goes on. Emma rivals Leroy for surliness at work. Spencer reams her out for sloppy police work when she hands him several incomplete files. And the worst thing is, she can’t even bring herself to care. She was so _sure_ before, so certain in the values of justice, of the law protecting people.

 

Where was the justice for Regina though, before she wrought it herself?

 

Mulan gets her green card when their two year anniversary hits and shortly after she and Mulan get divorced. Citing irreconcilable differences. She wishes so much that Mulan could have blamed it on Emma cheating – she deserved to be the bad guy – but Mulan thought it was too risky.

 

She gets home after work that week, her last week in the apartment before she finds a place of her own (and she’ll probably have to have a roommate), and finds an envelope on the bench addressed to her. Inside are plane tickets and an address.

 

_Consider this an anniversary present._

_Mulan_

 

*

 

Regina’s phone beeps and she sits up, brushing sand from her back. Shading it from the sun, she opens the latest email from Marian. Last she’d heard she was heading to Poland.

 

 _My dearest, loveliest ex-wife,_ Marian writes.

_I am in Poland where I met with a discerning – and very discrete – colleague at POLIN. My flight home is tomorrow, given there seems to be no warrant for my (our?) arrest. I’m already feeling nostalgic for the months I’ve spent travelling around Europe._

_And how is Puerto Rico? Are you fabulously tanned and relaxed by now? Send me a selfie. I miss your stupid face._

_Love Marian_

_P.S. (and this is only a postscript for dramatic effect) our friends Mulan and Emma divorced a month back. I’ve been in email contact with the lovely Mulan since letting her know that due to security concerns we would not be banking with Boston National. I might have also commiserated over our mutual divorces – isn’t it horrible when your wife cheats on you, that sort of thing. Something to ponder, no?_

 

Regina laughs, though the mention of Emma sends a twinge of longing through her. There haven’t been many days where she hasn’t thought of the woman, where she hasn’t recalled that one night. It was just sex, she reminds herself. Honestly though, it felt like more, feels like more. Marian had laughed about it when she told her. “Of course you fell for the one person you couldn’t,” she’d said and Regina had tried to tell her she hadn’t fallen but she felt the lie stick in her throat.

 

The sun beats down on her and her throat feels dry. She’ll pull the loose cotton dress on over her swimsuit shortly, head away from the beach for a meal and something to drink. It has been a blissful three months. She found her father’s childhood home in Luquillo, before his immigrating to the United States. She’s brushed up on her Spanish. She’s eaten the food that she’s been teaching herself to cook.

 

It’s not home though. She feels like a tourist, spending her days wandering markets and restaurants and lying on Monserrate Beach. She knows she looks like a tourist to the locals. She misses taking foster kids to the park. She misses the cold. She cannot stay here forever but she’s can’t go back either. Eventually someone will listen to Gold, will find the link between Regina Álvarez and Cora Mills, and come looking for her. There are a few options. She lies back, letting the sun warm her a few moments longer, and feels, rather than sees, the shadow fall across her body. She opens her eyes. “How did you find me?” she asks, sitting up.

 

Emma stands awkwardly, as though prepared to run at any point. She’s wearing jeans and sweat glistens on her forehead and she has tied her back in that way that months ago Regina thought was attractive. “Wasn’t hard,” she says. “I’m good at finding people.”

 

“And are you here to arrest me, Detective Swan?” Regina asks, standing and brushing sand from her thighs.

 

“Why would I be here to arrest you?” Emma asks, her eyes following Regina’s hands. “I have not a shred of evidence that ties you to a certain break-in in Boston three months ago.”

 

“Then why?” Regina asks.

 

“I’m on holiday,” Emma says. “Apparently if you spend a lot of time crying at your desk in a male-heavy environment when you’re getting divorced your captain will recommend you take your holiday leave. I might not go back though, depending.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Regina says, even though what she really wants to ask is ‘depending on what’, but Emma shrugs it off.

 

“I hear you’re on the market,” she says, eyes scanning Regina’s form. “I thought I’d ask you out on a date, start from scratch.”

 

“Starting a relationship with infidelity?” Regina asks. “Is that really wise?”

 

“It was a green card marriage,” Emma says and Regina could do something with that information if she didn’t care so much; it’s an expression of trust and she treasures it. “And I’m willing to bet you and Marian was a marriage of convenience.” She shuffles sneakered feet in the sand. “So, how about it?”

 

Regina smiles and grabs her phone, typing a brief response to Marian.

 

_Marian,_

_Congratulations on completing your mission. BTW, Mulan is definitely interested in you._

_I have to go. I have a date._

_Regina_

 

“Will now do?” she asks. “I need to eat anyhow.” And Emma’s smile is so broad, Regina thinks her face might freeze that way.


End file.
